


No Grave But The Sea

by pandaspots



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Songfic, euron dies the musical, slight speculation on the nature of the dragonbinder horn, yes a songfic in the year of our lord 2019 i know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21770176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandaspots/pseuds/pandaspots
Summary: They say songs are prayers. Asha fervently wished hers reached the Drowned God.twow fic; in which i kill euron greyjoy for fun and a laugh.
Relationships: Asha Greyjoy & Theon Greyjoy
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	No Grave But The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> yes, this is a songfic. yes i do know we're almost in 2020.
> 
> [The Charming Soundtrack](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMR4uWcSU00)
> 
> listen, alestorm gives me MASSIVE ironborn vibes, i couldn't just let this pass by me again. the fact i murder euron is just a bonus.

Asha was sitting at the bow, looking grimly at the horizon, at her uncle’s traitorous fleet. The sailors manning her ships weren’t all Ironborn, but she grudgingly admitted the Narrow Sea lords knew how to work a vessel. Especially ones as big as the Lannister warships the Bastard of Driftmark had swindled from the Mad Lioness.

Theon was sitting a little ways away, she felt his gaze on her neck. She looked back, his face a meek mirror to her mood, his bow at the ready. Her eyes roamed to the men in the Revenge of the Tides. The flagship, she had manned with mostly her men, though Lord Monterys had grumbled and actually whined a little at his bastard uncle not being the admiral for Queen Daenerys (she didn’t blame him. He  _ was _ 8 namedays old), and all of her Ironborn held dark expressions.

Theon tapped out a little rhythm on the floor with his feet and longbow. She saw Qarl’s face loosen up, if only for a moment, before he started singing.

“Quest! Set a course to the battle,” he sang tonelessly, and Tris joined in. “Speed, is our weapon of war. Euron,” they spat, changing the name from the original Gardener king the shanty spoke of, “will pay with his ichor.”

“Blood, mutilation ang gore,” the nearest ironborn sailors joined, stomping out the beat.

“This is a mission of murder,” Theon joined, now, a weak humorless smile on his face. “Death is the freedom you crave.”

“We are the agents of slaughter,” most of the sailors that knew the shanty were joining in now, as Euron’s ships got bigger in the horizon, “swift is the path to the grave.”

“Breaking the line!” screamed a few of the men. “Formidable rage!” sang the other half. “Ranking their broadside with fire!” they sang together, just as, by a stroke of luck, Jon Snow and Viserion flew by, the dragon screeching, which brough bloodthirsty smiles to the face of many.

“Sail away, set sail into the blue horizon! Ride the waves that guide our destiny!” The singing got louder, the portside adjacent ship’s Ironborn joining in.

“Sail away, today we fight, and there will be no mercy for those with no grave,” the starboard side ship joined.

“NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA!”, they shouted in unison, and she was sure that by now her uncle’s ships could hear that one.

“Ride! Now the winds are a-changing!” The volume of the singing got louder, and they could discern human-looking figures upon the ships now, so likely they could hear them, given that the winds did change, in  _ their _ favor.

“Into the Reach we will sail,” she heard more and more of the ships joining, now sticking to the original shanty, but it didn’t matter. The rest of the song was a testament to House Greyjoy’s strength, back in the golden age of reaving when they carved a bloody path into the Westerlands, the Reach and well into the Stormlands. “Flanked by the Kraken of Greyjoy, formidable charge cannot fail!”

She never thought she’d ever see a silhouette look fidgety, but as they got closer and the song could be heard more clearly, the words sinking into the traitors’ and the Westerlanders’s minds, the figures started moving.

“Fight! With a volley of wildfire! Blood stains the ocean this day”

She could see her uncle now, also standing at the bow, and below him, she saw the bloody remains of Uncle Aeron.

“We are the agents of slaughter!” She finally joined in, angered and disgusted, letting the familiar chant’s cadence temper her anger into something she could use. “Swift is the path to the grave!”

“Three thousand dead! Greenlanders defied! The battle of Old Oak is ours!”

So focused in searching for Euron’s kinslaying head, she didn’t notice Theon had managed to organize the archers, who at that moment let loose a volley of fire arrows into the traitor ships. Sadly, all of them missed uncle dearest.

“Sail away, set sail into the blue horizon, ride the waves, that guide our destiny!” The  _ Lannister _ navy was almost within boarding range, Asha noted, preparing herself. “Sail away, today we fight and there will be no mercy for those with no grave!”

She heard the noise of the boards making contact with enemy warships’ railings

“NO GRAVE BUT THE SEA!”, her Ironborn howled, and the enemy sailors flinched, most of them being the Mad Queen’s men, probably confused at the occasion for all the singing.

They practically decimated the crews of the first ships, while Queen Daenerys and Jon Snow set alight their flanks, dragonfire bearing one eerie similarity to wildfire: it also burned on the water, though not as long as the green flames.

“Dearest niece, how graceful of you to come.” Euron said, and Asha nearly growled like one of the Stark direwolves.

“You lost, Uncle. Yield, and we might give you a quick death,” she spat out, knowing Theon, Qarl and Tris were right behind her. They wouldn’t  _ die _ and leave her.

Not to Euron. Never to Euron.

“I haven’t lost yet,” he motioned, to a frightened boy,  _ a slave _ , who was holding a black horn, banded in gold and carved with glyphs, dripping with an oily aura that screamed magic.  _ The hellhorn _ , Asha thought, cold panic slithering down her spine. The boy gave one last look at the dragons, closed his eyes, and breathed in, then blew it.

It was the same as what happened in the Kingsmoot.

A thousand souls screaming, the acute feeling of  _ something _ burning, the glyphs burning white-hot, and the slave boy who blew it collapsed within ten seconds of blowing it, hands and mouth blistering from it. The blood dripping from his soon foaming mouth was black from soot and charred meat.

“Sail away, set sail into the blue horizon,” she whispered, almost like a prayer. A dragon’s screech was heard. She hoped it didn’t work. “Ride the waves that guide our destiny,” she continued, a little louder, letting the rhythm steady her even as tears fell down her cheeks.

“Sail away, today we fight,” Theon sang along with her, “and there will be no mercy for those with no grave,”

“Sail away,” she started again, stronger, stalking towards Euron, “set sail into the blue horizon, ride the waves, that ride our destiny,” she continued, hearing the voices of her Ironborn join her as they got closer. Another dragon screech echoed from the cliffs of Greyguard.

“Sail away, today we fight,” the dragon sounded closer, “and there will be no mercy for those with no grave,” the green one, Rhaegal, landed onto The Silence, roaring, halting their singing a little as Euron smiled victoriously, but they braved on, “No grave but the sea,” they finished, and Rhaegal lowered its head.

For a second, they thought it had worked, and Euron had bound Daenerys’ children to his will.

Then Rhaegal bit into her uncle, throwing him up and setting him on fire before eating him whole and taking off, nearly capsizing the ship in the process.

“Well,” Theon broke the silence that befallen them, too stunned they were to do anything more than stare at the place where Euron Greyjoy stood once upon a time. “Is this a bad time to remember Snow telling us magic was a sword without a hilt?”

“What was he said, back on Old Wyk? The horn could bind dragons to the horn’s master?” Qarl asked, still shaking like a green weed in the wind. “I don’t think a  _ horn _ has enough conscience to recognize who owns it.”

“The slave boy was looking at Daenerys and Drogon before he blew it,” Asha said, feeling rather weak herself. “Maybe the magic takes into account the loyalties of the blower?”

“Maybe,” Theon said, looking at the circling Rhaegal. “Let’s not question our luck lest our god decides against it. Someone else start the singing now?”

“In Lemonwood, there lives a man,” Qarl started, turning away from Euron’s ship, right onto the boarding planks. “Five rusty rooks on his right hand!”

“And rage consumes his every living day!” Tris followed, loudly, glad for the distraction.

At the feast the Redwynes threw in their honor, Asha found herself in a place of regard, and most of the involved did not know how to react to that. Reachers and Ironborn had been at odds for so long, it was certainly a godly jape that they were now celebrating their once reavers.

Lord Paxter Redwyne looked particularly constipated at it.

“So,” a male voice from her left said, and Asha turned to look at Jon Snow, who looked mightily uncomfortable wearing Targaryen colors, even if the ensemble  _ was _ mostly black (a color he already favored naturally,  _ like the gloomy fucker he is _ , according to Theon, in one of his bouts of being himself). “Are all Ironborn songs as enchanting as that one?”

“It’s a sea shanty, and no, they’re usually bloodier.”

_ “PLUNDER WITH THUNDER, KILL FOR THE THRILL,” _ she heard some of her men, Dagmer Cleftjaw in the forefront, scream, from where they were more than a little drunk on the graciousness of Lord Redwyne.  _ “DRINK UP ME HEARTIES ‘TIL WE HAD OUR FILL! RAISE UP OUR TANKARDS INTO THE SKY! REAVERS FOREVER FROM NOW ‘TIL WE DIE!” _

“Like I said,” he doubled down, sitting beside her, a small smirk on his mouth,  _ “enchanting.” _

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for coming to my self-serving party, i hope yall had the same ball i did!  
> also the deluxe version of no grave but the sea has dog versions of all the songs, in case the lyrics of these songs weren't hilarious enough. it's on spotify. i love it so much.
> 
> the specific songs i butchered for this fic are No Grave But The Sea, Rage of the Pentahook and Bar Ünd Imbiss. for the first two i _counted poetical syllables and fit names into the metric_ for the sake of lifting the song into westeros. my head is still hurting from the loop i kept no grave but the sea.
> 
> thanks for reading, see yall whenever i finish one of the things i should!!!


End file.
